Both Pushkin’s “The Queen of Spades” and the movie 21, based off of Ben Mezrich’s Bring Down the House, share a similar plot structure that highlights the self-destructive effects of greed and obsession. While gambling for monetary gain may seem trivial and irrational to the average person since the probability of making millions is incredibly slim, some people are enthralled by the idea that they could possibly have all of problems solved if they play their cards right. In the end, these gamblers succumb to their impulsive behavior by continuing to play their lives away. In each story, the main character is a victim to their own greed as they progressively become obsessed with winning.

In “The Queen of Spades,” Hermann is a simple officer who has no interest in gambling; however, one night while watching his peers play cards, he listens to the story of the Countess winning her fortune with a secret three-card combination. Intrigued by this, he takes an interest in the Countess in order to learn the secret. Similarly, Ben Campbell, an MIT student, has no interest in blackjack, but after noticing his extraordinary mathematical talent, his professor, Mickey Rosa, recruits him for a gambling operation. Instead of a secret card combination, they employ a system of card counting that exponentially increases their probability of winning at the poker tables. Both characters can be classified under a literary archetype where an innocent character is lulled into evil or darkness by a devil character. An example of this would be Eve from the Garden of Eden who is tempted by the serpent into consuming the forbidden fruit or how Anakin Skywalker is persuaded to join the dark side by the Dark Lord who undermines his faith in the Jedi. This occurs in many other works of literature, and takes many different forms. However, this is not as transparent in “The Queen of Spades” or 21 because there is no distinct source of evil, but what...

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...Parts of LiteraryWorks
Samara Prescott
ENG 125 Introduction to Literature
Professor Fawn vonFrohling
July 9, 2012
Parts of LiteraryWorks
We all know that life must come to an end one day. No one knows the day, time, or where we will be when it happens, but it will definitely happen. As with mortal life, the seemingly immortal life, or life portrayed within literaryworks too must come to an end. Whether it is a human life or the life of a family pet, it is guaranteed that when we are born, that we must die. In this paper, I will compare and contrast the literaryworks, “Used to Live Here Once” by Jean Rhys and “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” by Emily Dickinson. I will discuss the point of view, character development, theme, setting, symbolism, and tone.
Point of view within a literarywork is defined as “who tells the story or how the action is presented to the reader” (Clugston, 2010). There are different types of points of view. The primary two that we tend to discuss or recognize are: First-person point of view, or when the narrator or story teller is a part of the story and the third-person point of view- this is when the narrator is not a part of the story being told. The third-person point of view has two forms: omniscient which is an "all knowing point of view” and limited omniscient when the “thoughts...

...LiteraryWorks
Sophia Wiggins
ENG125: Introduction to Literature
Joan Golding
October 9, 2012
Death is an aspect of life that everyone becomes acquainted with sooner or later. Two poems that deal with the concept of death that I actually enjoyed reading and will compare to each others are “Death be not proud” and “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night”
These poems seem to have contradictory message about death, yet at the same time have similar attitudes toward it.” Death Be Not Proud” sees death as an opponent; however, one sees it as an adversary that is already defeated while the other sees it as an enemy that must be defeated.
In “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night,” poet Dylan Thomas uses nighttime as a metaphor for death, and anguishes over his father’s willing acceptance of it. This poem is one of the most famous villanelles every written in the English language. Villanelles are 19 lines long, consisting of five stanzas of three lines each and concluding with a four line stanza. Villanelles uses only two rhymes, while repeating two lines throughout the poem, which then appear together at the conclusion of the last stanza. The two lines repeated in this work are “Rage, rage against the dying of the light” and “Do not go gentle into that good night.”
The poet begins by proposing that the elderly should not easily accept their demise (“go gentle”), that they should fight it with vigor and...

...wants, they’ll only want it more. This turns into an obsession and all such obsessions end badly.
Summer going into college, I met a boy — so begins every hopeless love story. The more I got to know him, the more I liked him. The more I liked him, the more I wanted to spend time with him. Fortunately, he felt the same way about me times 50. He was going through a rough patch in his life, and because I have a thing for damaged goods (they make me feel less crazy), I look like the beacon of light in a dark rough, sea of isolation. He offered his heart to me on a silver platter. Everything he could do for me, he would. I was his princess, which was something I had never experienced.
For some time I wanted him in my life, but as I started college I wanted my independence. His previous physo bitch of an ex didn’t understand the term independence. His past needy, fucked up relationship was at the opposite spectrum of ours. He clang to me the only way he knew how… as a puppy. The problem was, the sex was incredible. What a needy, cute, fuckable, puppy he was. It was so good that although I didn’t want to date him, I couldn’t let him go, either. Although I didn’t always want him, I didn’t want anyone else to have him. He was mine and I was his, but everytime I fucked up he was willing to forgive me. His compacitly for loving me was endless. In the meantime, I had managed to fall for him. And so this began my obsession...

...﻿Test Review: Division, Reconciliation, and Expansion
Part I: BRIEFLY summarize each literarywork. A couple of sentences should be sufficient for you to create a quick reference guide for studying purposes. (Note: This does not mean that you shouldn’t also go back to specific passages from the literaryworks when you study.)
“The Open Boat” by Stephen Crane
“The Open Boat,” is a story about four men who were stuck in the ocean. They are trying to survive and at the end, one of them dies.
From My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass
“My Bondage and My Freedom,” is a story about a slave boy whose owner used to teach him how to read and write. Then her husband told her not to and made her stop. He didn’t hate his owner, he just didn’t like her husband. He still loved his owner because she gave him the bit of education he had. He appreciated her and was grateful towards her.
“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce
This story is about a man who is being hanged off Owl Creek Bridge. As he is being hanged, he imagines himself escaping and seeing his wife one more time. Although his imagination seems so real, in the end you find out that he was actually dead and didn’t survive or escape to see his wife and children.
“The Gettysburg Address” by Abraham Lincoln
“The Gettysburg Address,” is Abraham Lincoln’s speech that he gave in dedication to the military cemetery on the battlefield in...

...The Great LiteraryWorks of Solomon
Mary A. Wilson
BIB 113 – Old Testament History
Grand Canyon University
Dr. Calvin Habig, Instructor
August 16, 2009
The Great LiteraryWorks of Solomon
The purpose of the Book of Psalms is to provide the expression of praise, worship and confession to God. The purpose of the Book of Proverbs is to teach people how to attain wisdom, discipline, and a prudent life, and how to do what is right, just, and fair. In short, to apply divine wisdom to daily life and to provide moral instruction. In the following paragraphs, we will compare the two Books. (Life Application Study Bible, New International Version, Tyndale)
In the book, An Historical Survey of the Old Testament by Eugene H. Merrill, it states that the psalms constitute the hymn book of Israel. Many psalms were sung and recited on festal occasions and probably even in homes and at work. Approximately half of the 150 were written by David, who it is evident, had great artistic abilities (1Chron. 13:8); a few were by Solomon, whose reputation also is well established in these pursuits (1 Kings 4:29-34); by Asaph, one of David’s court poets; and by the sons of Korah, another group of professional writers; and one was even written by Moses (Ps. 90). Some are of anonymous authorship and were written over many years. A majority of the psalms come from the unied monarchy period (tenth...

...CatVamshi Adimulam 10/4/12
Critical Lens Essay Period 1
Popular to Loser, loneliness will creep into your life at some point in your life. As Carson McCullers says, “All people are lonely. Our literature is stamped with a quality of longing and unrest”. Loneliness is in reality and the very literature we study about. Even loneliness cannot slip away in stories like other characteristics of reality such as beauty and intelligence. Loneliness is a quality everyone can understand and relate to. Pieces of literature such as The Catcher In the Rye, written by J.D. Salinger, and Heart is a Lonely Hunter, written by Carson McCullers, both exhibit loneliness as key aspects in their works.
In the novel, The Catcher In the Rye, Holden Caulfield does not know how to treat women which partially explains why he is lonesome. For example, an ironic action Holden commits is he requests Sally Hayes to go on a date with him, but by the end of the date he says, “‘C’mon, let’s get outa here,’ I said. ‘You give me a royal pain in the ass, if you want to know the truth’” (Salinger 133). After inviting her to the date, he ends up calling her a pain in the ass. No matter how angry or disappointed a man is, he shouldn’t insult a girl, especially whom who take on a date. It is apparent to the reader that Holden cannot hold his temper and spits out harsh words to people. This particular example is one out of the many actions Holden commits that will further...

...﻿Someone had told that: “any old fool can learn a language but it takes an intelligent person to become a translator”. In reality, translators have to encounter with many cases that there is no word in the target language which express the same or exact meaning as the source language especially in translating literarywork. So it is necessary to list the strategies used to deal with non-equivalence when translating one literarywork from English to Vietnamese.
In this writing, we list and analyze the six main strategies to deal with non-equivalence at word level.
At first, translation by a more general word is one of the most commonly applied strategies. So it is not too difficult to see this strategy in a literarywork.
For instance:
ST: … reach out to take my hand.
TT: … rồi cô ta nắm lấy tay tôi.
ST: He put his arms around me…
TT: Anh vòng tay ôm tôi…
It is clear that the English words “hand” and “arms” or even “fin” can all be translated by the Vietnamese “tay”. By this way, the meaning of ST is conveyed completely without any incomprehensive of target readers.
Second, the strategy of translation by a more specific word is seemingly less popular because it is harder to search for a more specific word than a more general one. Translators have to choose among several different Vietnamese words which have general concept or meaning related to one English word.
For example:...